When asked to think about the most common culprits for a relationship's going south, most people will point to cheating, complacency, and taking one's partner for granted. While these are all valid -- and documented in various posts on this blog -- there are certain habits on the part of partners that may not kill the relationship right away, but cause it to erode more gradually.  Among the most egregious of these is expecting your significant other to be perfect. They pick at your follies any chance they get. Nothing you do is ever good enough. In fact, you will never measure up to an ex, neighbor, or accomplished co-worker.  Perhaps this all sounds a bit familiar.  When you feel as though you're constantly being put under the microscope, it can inflict lasting damage on the relationship and your self-esteem. You're walking on eggshells all the time, praying you don't say or do something that's going to trigger your partner. This is no way to live, let alone ca...

Utah state senator Todd Weiler wants Utah to declare pornography a public health crisis. He's introduced new legislation that calls for education, prevention, research, and policy change at the community and societal level in order to tackle what he says is a pornography epidemic that is hurting people in Utah and throughout the U.S. Utah has one of the nation’s highest rates of porn use. Weiler insists that this isn't a veiled attempt at foisting his conservative beliefs on people. He says he simply wishes to raise awareness of the many perils of pornography. In addition to being highly addictive, Weiler asserts it undermines families, strains relationships, and plays a key role in many divorces in Utah. But some people feel pornography isn't as damaging as Weiler is making it out to be. In fact, they say porn is a healthy outlet that can actually infuse excitement into marriages, particularly those that have hit a dry patch in the intimacy department. I think Weiler...

It's often been said that people who don't know history are doomed to repeat it. According to new research published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology , though, it appears that being reminded of our failures actually makes us more likely to repeat such behaviors. Per the researchers, remembering our past mistakes will not necessarily help us make better decisions in the present. In fact, thinking about our failures at self-control -- whether it's blowing a diet, racking up more credit card debt than we intended, or cheating on a partner one or more times -- leads us to repeat them. For example, thinking about a time when you blew a diet by eating an entire pizza pie by yourself makes you more likely to blow another one in the same way. Titled "Haunts or Helps From the Past: Understanding the Effect of Recall on Current Self-Control," the study is the first of its kind and was conducted by professors at the University of Pittsburgh and Vanderbilt Universi...